VisionFund Zambia took part in the FI2020 week conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka under the theme “Promoting financial inclusion by leveraging Saving Groups and Microfinance Institutions in Zambia.”

The guest of honor during FI2020 week was Bank of Zambia Director for Non-Bank Financial Institutions Supervision Vissher Bbuku who was represented by a senior official from the Bank of Zambia.

During the conference, VisionFund Zambia and Catholic Diocese of Ndola made presentations about various organizations’ impacts scored in Savings Groups microfinance. During his presentation, VisionFund Zambia Chief Executive Officer, Nkosilathi Moyo gave an overview of VisionFund’s scope of work, successes, challenges, and opportunities.

The conference was attended by several Chief Executive Officers (CEO) from different organizations including World Vision Zambia Limited National Director, Mark Kelly. Other organizations were Zoona Money transfer, Cavmont Capital Bank among others.

The biggest gaps to achieving financial inclusion in the country/industry in focus:

Lack of a conducive regulatory frameworkPoor infrastructure - road network, electricity , connectivity etc. This has made the cost of doing business in rural areas very highInformation asymmetry - players do not share information, they do not collaborate and there is not adequate research on rural typology for any new players

Key action steps to advance financial inclusion:

Participants commended the effort to have such a platform to discuss issues on financial inclusion and encouraged more of such events. It was agreed that this (FI2020) should be an annual event in Zambia until 2020. More effort should be put in strategic partnerships between Mobile Network Operators, financial service providers, NGOs, and Government to development cost effective delivery channels in order to reach out to more people in rural areas.

The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) is an action-oriented think tank dedicated to enabling 3 billion people underserved by the financial sector to improve their lives. CFI engages and challenges the financial inclusion industry to better serve, protect and empower clients through its insights, advocacy and stakeholder engagement.